"Hey, why do you think the red-crowned crane puts up with staying in such a stinky place and doesn't fly away?"
"I don't know..."
Visitors walked by Fang Ye, conversing with confusion.
Although the riverbanks were only surrounded by a fence a little over a meter high, the Oriental storks couldn't fly out. The reason was simple: their wings had been clipped.
In fact, the wings of the zoo's large bird species, including geese, pelicans, storks, cranes, ducks... and even flamingos, were almost all clipped.
When it comes to Waterfowl Lake, what many people envision first is a flock of brightly colored flamingos standing in the water. In fact, flamingos can fly!
Wing clipping generally involves removing the tips of one wing so that the lengths of the two wings are not uniform, causing imbalance and, naturally, the inability to fly.
Although it's a bit pitiful for the birds, if their wings were not clipped, there would be no way to keep these birds free to roam; they might fly off to overpasses or various places. Who knows, a duck might even be caught and turned into soup...
Without free ranging, they would have to be confined to small cages, which severely limits their space to move and is actually worse for the birds. Wing clipping is a practice adopted after weighing the pros and cons.
Another method, similar to what Linhai Zoo is constructing with its tropical rainforest exhibit, involves a very tall building with a roof. This allows the birds to keep their wings intact while still providing them with some space to fly.
However, building such an exhibit is too costly! Most zoos simply can't afford it.
The most they could do is provide enclosures slightly larger than a birdcage for birds like macaws, still too small to satisfy their need to fly.
There's also a compromise method, which does not involve clipping the wingtips but only the primary feathers.
Primary feathers can regrow, and once they are fully grown, the birds can soar in the skies again.
This might sound good, but it also has significant drawbacks. The primary feathers generally need to be clipped once a year; not only is it not always feasible to do this on demand, but the process of catching and chasing stresses the birds each time...
Moreover, the speed at which the primary feathers regrow varies among bird species. Some birds grow them quickly and require more frequent clipping.
Birds that can't fly can still flap their wings and run fast, and they will also swim in the water. Each one has to be chased down, caught, and have its primary feathers clipped, which is incredibly draining for the animal keepers.
It's torturous for both parties, and not as simple as one-time wingtip clipping!
The World Zoo and Aquarium Ethics Agreement stipulates: "The cutting off of any part of an animal's body to alter its physical appearance for aesthetic reasons is prohibited. However, as an exception, the wing clipping of birds is the only permitted method for educational or management purposes, and is limited to cases where other methods are not sufficient to maintain control."
Before Fang Ye went through his transmigration, Linhai Zoo was only slightly better than Pingjiang Zoo.
Linhai Zoo's enclosures weren't as spacious for the animals as those at Pingjiang Zoo, and lacked grass and trees. But with fewer animals, each enclosure's animal keeper was able to keep it clean and tidy.
They fed the animals well and if they couldn't afford to care for them, they'd send them somewhere else. They wouldn't let them starve and suffer.
Moving further inside, he came across the camel exhibit.
The outer walls were crooked, smeared with mud and deliberately crafted with cracks, as if to mimic desert rock walls, with two large umbrellas placed at the center, their supports made of raw wood and their canopies formed from dry branches.
The ground showed some water stains; probably from watering that morning, but it was already almost dry.
A camel huddled in the doorway of the back shed, peering out.
Lan Li waved at the camel with a grin, "Hello there, camel~"
At least it looked more comfortable than the earlier surroundings!
Fang Ye sized up the exhibit, shook his head, and commented, "What fancy nonsense. What good are these umbrellas? With such decor, it's purely for show. The camel won't seek shade underneath them on the concrete floor. Look, it doesn't even want to come out. It would be more practical to spread some sand on the ground."
Concrete, brick, and asphalt materials have low reflectivity but high absorption of sunlight, making their temperatures far exceed the ambient air temperature.
That's why on particularly hot days, frying an egg on the ground is actually possible...
Continuing on, they came across a "Loving Feed" sales booth at the intersection.
An old lady sat under the tree on a chair, cracking sunflower seeds, with a few bottles of mineral water on the table in front of her and carrot sticks in small paper cups. Seeing them approach, she boomed energetically, "Young man, want to buy some feed, 10 yuan a portion? You can feed the zebras here."
This is yet another major flaw of many large zoos, which they cannot avoid.
Selling feed on one hand while preventing visitors from feeding the animals on the other, could this ever be effective?
Fang Ye waved his hand, "No, thank you."
Feeling frustrated, he thought: Such expensive tickets, and yet they're still making money off feed. Didn't the sign at the Oriental stork enclosure say not to feed them? Could those signs be templates found online, just like other zoos' educational exhibits...
The old lady spat out the shell of the sunflower seed and said nothing more. However, she seemed somewhat contemptuous.
A young man brings such a pretty girlfriend, and he's too tight-fisted to buy some feed?